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Dave chats with University of Northern Colorado student Trevor Okeson
Topics include: gun control, AR-15, radio, Christianity, music, 21 Pilots. Segment aired Feb. 17, 2018 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
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Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of September 7, 2014.
Chuck D once rapped, “My Uzi weighs a ton.” If only Uzi submachine guns did weigh a ton, then children couldn’t pick them up and fire them. But, of course, submachine guns are made purposely to be lightweight and portable yet still cause massive damage in a brief amount of time. Like eating sugar-free Gummi Bears.
Last week near Las Vegas, a nine-year-old girl was practicing on a gun range. As Lewis Black would say, I shall repeat that. There’s an Arizona firing range, about an hour from Sin City, where tourists can go practice their marksmanship under instructional supervision. Among those tourists last week: a nine-year-old child. (Not that there are any nine-year-old grownups – unless you count kids with the aging disease that makes them look like Mr. Magoo.) This little girl was doing so well with regular weapons, that her instructor, Charles Vacca – the late Charles Vacca – said, “Oh, what the hell. Let’s give her a repeating assault weapon, and see how she does.”
She did not do well. I think most parents will tell you that a nine-year-old girl can barely control her bladder, let alone a semi-automatic machine gun. Charles Vacca instructed the precocious tyke to pull the trigger and fire off one round at the target. Which she did. But you know, bullets are like potato chips; you fire one, before you know it, you’ve emptied the whole bag. The difference between a snack food and an Israeli-made weapon of mass destruction is that a can of Pringles doesn’t have a kickback. Well, unless they’re made with Olestra. A machine gun, however, in the hands of someone who weighs fifty pounds, is gonna squeeze off fifty rounds. One of those bullets managed to find its way to the middle of Charles Vacca’s forehead, which is why he had to cancel the rest of his classes through next Thursday. His return after that depends on whether Moshiach comes on Friday and revives him.
Otherwise, you’ve got a dead guy, a child who has to go through life knowing she killed him, and a gun industry saying, “Hey, freak accident. We don’t need minimum age requirements, just height and weight suggestions.” Morons.
But there is some good that can come out of this tragic incident. When this moppet murderess grows up and goes to college, she is the last chick any frat boy is gonna date rape. (“Steer clear, bro. Remember what she did to the last guy who grabbed her arm?”) Also, in the big book of karma, you gotta figure this is payback for every deer that was ever minding its own business, frolicking in the woods and suddenly, BAM!, she’s on the hood of a four-by-four. For once, Bambi’s mother gets to snicker and go, “How’s it feel, asshole?”
Lastly and bestly, this episode does serve to showcase the glorious superiority of Israeli technology. Arabs can fire a thousand rockets out of Gaza, with two or three – almost by accident – hitting targets and causing damage. But the Uzi submachine gun? You pick that up and point, and you’re looking at a Jonestown massacre in seven seconds. That’s craftsmanship!
Anyhoo, the Arizona Last Stop shooting range where all this went down, is still open, still packed with customers, still promoting, quote, “a Desert Storm” atmosphere with a base age requirement of eight. I shall repeat that: eight. Folks, I have an eight-year-old kid, and I won’t even let her use a cheese grater. Yes, I have to tolerate chunky wedges of parmesan on my linguini, but she keeps her fingers, and I keep my sanity. Well, such as it is.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, going out with a bang, from Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #50 (12/23/2012): Gun Control
Aired December 22, 2012 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iRX8beuhkU
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of December 23rd, 2012.
Anything can be a weapon. A scissor. A tire iron. A baseball bat. If I hit you in the face with a hardcover copy of Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead,” your head will spurt like a fountain. If I drop two pennies off the roof of the Empire State Building, whoever is walking below will lose their cents. You don’t need a gun to hurt someone.
No, I’m not spoiling the plot of the next “Final Destination” movie; I’m offering the motto of the National Rifle Association, the N.R.A. Why ban guns, they say, when they’re just one kind of weapon? Two radio hosts killed a woman by making her drink too much water. Do we ban faucets? Another pair of deejays helped kill a woman by making believe they were the royal family. Do we ban phone calls?
That is the logic the N.R.A. uses to defend guns. Crazy people will always find ways to kill, sometimes with box-cutters on an airplane, sometimes with a loaded gas tank and a 1.2 blood-alcohol level. Guns don’t kill people, they say; people kill people.
The problem as I see it, is that people kill people…with guns. Adam Lanza did not walk into Sandy Hook Elementary School carrying a sharpened broom handle. He didn’t fire off a hundred rounds of ping-pong balls. He had his mother’s guns – three of them. And the N.R.A. says the blame is hers. She should have kept them locked up, safely stored, away from her child. But her child was 20 years old. Which means back when Adam Lanza was sane – presumably – and he turned 18, he was old enough to be shown where the guns were and how to use them. He could have gone to Walmart and gotten his own guns.
And the other cry of the N.R.A. whenever there’s a massacre – which is every couple of weeks in this fakakteh country – well, if one of the good guys had a gun, this wouldn’t have happened. Or the carnage would have been less, because the teacher, or the movie-theater usher, or the flight attendant could whip out a .45 and blast the psycho before he starts running a tally in double digits.
There is some logic to this, if all these pistol-packing good Samaritans have amazing aim, have recent and constant practice, and happen to be just at the wrong place at the right time. I admit, there are times I would love to carry a gun. I also admit that in a dangerous, do-or-die situation, I would reach for the gun, my hand would slip, and I’d shoot myself right in the balls. Just because everyone can own a gun doesn’t mean everyone should own a gun.
What makes me mad about the N.R.A. is their absolute inability to compromise. The Democrats say, “We don’t want to ban guns. We want sensible gun control.” The N.R.A. says, “You can’t ban guns.” The Democrats say, “No, listen. We don’t want to ban guns. We just want more background checks and the banning of semi-automatic weapons.” The N.R.A. says, “You can’t ban guns.” Right-wing Republicans are like autistic children; you can’t reason with them, all you can do is hope to distract them with something shiny.
The second Amendment of the United States Constitution was adopted in 1791. It was created so that people could hunt for food, defend themselves and mainly to protect the former colonies from foreign invasion. If it seems a little silly in 2012 to worry about British redcoats wanting to sleep in your garage, it wasn’t quite so hilarious in late 2001, when you didn’t know when or where the next turban was gonna drop.
So I am not one of those people who thinks only police and the military should have guns. They’re already in power, they don’t need more firepower. It’s perfectly understandable why a rural farmer would want a shotgun, or a Jew carrying merchandise in the diamond district might need a pistol, or a schvartz NFL player in a nightclub might want three colts, a glock and a snub-nose .38. But none of those people needs an AK-47. Nobody needs to fire two dozen uninterrupted rounds unless you’re making Swiss cheese and you’re really pressed for time.
Is it opportunistic of people who are pro-gun control to use a national tragedy for political gain? Sure, just as when Ernest Borgnine died, I lobbied Congress to release the entire “McHale’s Navy” series on Blue-Ray. It was just the right thing to do.
Sensible gun control is also the right thing to do, and it’s a lot smarter than banning midnight movies, elementary schools and high-school cafeterias. Although, banning high-school cafeteria food . . . not the worst idea.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Here is the 405th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, Dec. 22, 2012. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Dave celebrates the world surviving Mayan Doomsday with a Saturday Segue on Endtimes. Plus: Inside Broadway, News Gone By, Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection on gun control, Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (John Wesley Harding 45th anniversary).
Host: Dave Lefkowitz
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN 00:08:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Endtimes, part 1 00:49:30 Thanks & Sponsors 01:00:00 INSIDE BROADWAY 01:20:30 NEWS GONE BY 01:39:30 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’s RABBINICAL REFLECTION #50 – Gun Control 01:46:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (John Wesley Harding 45th Anniversary) 02:25:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Endtimes, part 2 02:49:30 DAVE SAYS BYE – Larry L. King 02:59:30 Thanks & Weather & Friends 03:05:00 DAVE GOES OUT
Dec. 22, 2012 Playlist: “The Last Night of the World” (09:00; Bruce Cockburn). “End of the World” (00:14:00; Herman’s Hermits). “The End has Begun” (00:17:00; Loudon Wainwright III). “Sweet Apocalypse” (00:21:00; Moby). “End” (Peter Case; 00:25:00). “(I’ll Love You) Till the End of the World” (00:28:30; Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds). “Time Waits for No One” (00:32:30; The Rolling Stones). “It’s Over” (00:39:00; Tom Waits). “Master of the House” (01:15:00; Les Miserables Broadway cast). “Jet Song” (01:24:00; West Side Story; film soundtrack). “Coffee Homeground” (01:32:00; Kate Bush). “John Wesley Harding” (01:50:00) & “As I Walked Out One Morning” (01:53:00; Bob Dylan). “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine” (01:56:00; John Doe). “All Along the Watchtower” (01:59:00; Bryan Ferry). “Dear Landlord” (02:02:30; Joan Baez). “I Pity the Poor Immigrant” (02:05:30; Judy Collins). “Wicked Messenger” (02:10:00; The Black Keys). “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” (02:13:30; Barb Jungr). “I Found the End” (02:26:00; Broadcast). “It’s Over” (02:28:00; The Smiths). “It’s Over” (02:34:00; Aimee Mann). “Time Out from the World” (02:37:30; Goldfrapp). “The End” (02:42:30; The Doors). “The Galaxy Song” (02:44:30; “Monty Python’s Meaning of Life;” film soundtrack). “Hard Candy Christmas” (02:54:00; “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” film soundtrack). “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” (03:06:30; R.E.M.).
Dylan’s John Wesley HardingLarry L. Kinggun controlRabbi Sol Solomon
